


Mind's Eye

by Cupcake_Kiri



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Altean Lance (Voltron), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Black Paladin Keith (Voltron), Blue Paladin Allura (Voltron), Cuban Lance (Voltron), Dark Lance (Voltron), Everyone Needs A Hug, Gender-Neutral Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Homesick Lance (Voltron), Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Insecure Lance (Voltron), Keith and Shiro are Adoptive Siblings, Langst, M/M, Mind Control, POV Alternating, Pining Keith (Voltron), Set Around season three ep 2, Shiro is missing still, Suicide Attempt, There will be a recovery arc, White Haired Lance, klance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-03-16
Packaged: 2019-03-31 12:20:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13975023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cupcake_Kiri/pseuds/Cupcake_Kiri
Summary: Lance's insecurities become all the more apparent as he loses the Blue Lion. An earlier mission allowed for Lance's heart to be open to the enemy and now all of Voltron will bear the consequences.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoy this read. This does include references to self-harm and I hope you are cautious as reading. Take care of yourself. I do not intend this piece to glorify self-harm and I am very pro-recovery. It's not a big portion of this fic but I want you all the be aware that is it present and addressed. 
> 
> Thank you very much, 
> 
> Please don't hesitate to comment or message me on tumblr at http://thememeappreciationfront.tumblr.com
> 
> I love y'all too much to even put in words <3 
> 
> Clare_Scriven

The mission was simple. Infiltrate the Galra ship, download the information, retreat back to the castle. Three steps. Lance’s job: cover Keith and Hunk as they took down the defences. It was supposed to be an outlier ship in the furthest quadrant of Zarkon’s reign. There was only supposed to be one Galran on the ship. Only the Marmora’s intel was wrong or at least partially wrong. There was an inspection going on so there were 13 Galrans and countless more sentries. 

_One more mission. One more shot. One more Galran Sentry down. Protect Hunk. Protect Keith. Protect Keith._

Lance’s mind was reeling trying to keep his mind on the mission. 

_Prove yourself. Prove yourself worthy of the blue lion, of being a Paladin. Don’t let the team down. Keep your eyes open. If you’re not the ‘Sharpshooter’ you’re nothing. If you can’t complete this simple mission, you should just die._

Shots came his way but there was nothing he could do other than to counter. Keith was taking on four sentries. Hunk was working on the door and Pidge was in their lion occupying the fleet with Shiro. Lance shot forward to try and lessen the load on Keith. He stood still as he steadied his breath, one sentry. He hears ringing. 

_Useless. Pathetic. Nothing._

Lance looked down at his hip feeling the aftermath of the shot. The screaming around him dulled as his vision faded in and out of focus. 

_You’re lucky that no one else got hurt trying to protect you. At least, now, you won’t be a burden to Voltron…_

Lance’s bayard dissolved in his hand as he collapsed to the ground. 

~~

Lance stands in front of a mirror inspecting all the damage fighting with Voltron has done to his body. Nothing more than the damage he’s done to himself. He looks down at all the scarring on his hips, little lines fill his skin, a pale white against his tan. A tick for every mistake. His reflection looks up at him. “You’re nothing; it would be too easy to infiltrate your mind. Silly Paladin,” his reflection laughs. “Maybe you’ll be of more use to us then to the rebellion. Easier to break a weak mind. This may be more fun then the stubborn Champion.” 

Lance screams as a sterile white light consumes him. 

“Lance!” Pidge yells as the cypo-pod doors open with a hiss and Lance falls forward. “Guys, he’s awake! You really scared us, Lance.”

“Nothing to be afraid of. I’d never leave the ladies and gentlemen hanging like that. How would they survive without a heavy helping of Lancey Lance?” Lance boasts groggily as he winks at Allura. Coran, Allura and the Paladins of Voltron groan and let go a sigh of relief. _Typical Lance._

Keith looks at Lance quizzically as Allura skips off to the next mission’s plan. As everyone turns their attention to Allura, Lance deflates, feeling the weight of the fog wash over him. 

_You boast so openly so that no one sees how worthless you are to the team. How inadequate you are at all your tasks. A real paladin wouldn’t have let himself get injured. Would they shun you if they knew who you really were? What you really were? Why you’re here?_

Lance roams the castle aimlessly, thinking to himself. Time fading out of his consciousness, he finds himself at the doors of the training room. Inside he sees Keith training, practicing hand to hand combat with the Altean training bots, breaking a sweat. Lance longs to be his equal. 

“Hey, Mullet!” he calls out. 

“What do you want, Lance?” Keith spits back, clearly pre-occupied. 

“Those bots seem to be kicking your ass, why don’t you fight something more your speed, like that dummy over there?” Lance teases. Unsure how to talk to Keith, desperate to dodge the subject of last mission. 

“Oh, you mean you?” Keith shoots back. 

_Even the Red Paladin doesn’t even see you as anything of worth. See how he equates you to nothingness. He hates you. You’re dead weight to him. You can’t even fight. Why are you even here?_

“Fight me, Keith!” Lance yells changing the air into something much more serious. 

_If you can’t hold your own against the Red Paladin, you should just leave Voltron. They can easily find a better pilot. A better shooter. A better fighter. Why are you so afraid of leaving when you know they see you the same as you see yourself? A burden. Do them a favour._

“Fine,” Keith scoffs, clearly annoyed with the shift in tone. He raises his sword. “Ready?” He raises his eyebrows when Lance takes to long to respond. 

Lance picks up a glaive about his height. Keith quickly flinches in confusion but is immediately taken aback by Lance first attack. Everything about the way Lance fights is reflective of his personality; erratic, boisterous, and desperate. Lance clings to his position as he’s overpowered by Keith’s skill. 

_If you lose to the Red Paladin now, there’s no coming back._

Lance is dripping sweat as he swings the glaive with no sense of where he’s aiming, or how much energy he’s wasting. 

_If you lose you may as well die._

Keith clips Lance’s cheek and the blood drips down his face. Lance wipes his cheek staining half his face in blood. 

_Either you win or you die._

Blades clang against one another. Keith is winning, easily, but Lance’s desperation feeds the fight. Keith does not falter. As Keith’s blade presses against Lance’s neck, Lance’s mind screams. 

_VICTORY OR DEATH!_

Something in Lance’s attitude shifts hearing those words echo through his mind. Keith sees his stance steady and the movements that were one erratic and desperate were now cold and calculating. Decisive; their goal seemed to be to crush Keith. Keith, looking into Lance’s eyes, was beginning to fear that it was possible. In a quick movement, Keith is disarmed and stepping back from Lance’s glaive. Deliberately teasing jabs are made at Keith’s ankles as he is backed onto a wall. As Lance’s jabs get higher and higher along Keith’s body. Lance had never seemed this big before. Was he always taller than Keith? 

_Now finish him and fulfil your purpose._

Lance could feel the unfamiliar words weighing on his tongue. 

“ _Guess you’re just as worthless as me now_ ” Lance emotion filling him once again. He dropped his glaive and left the training room. 

_You couldn’t even break the Red Paladin when you were winning the fight. Pathetic._

Lance was bombarded with thoughts of regret and self-hatred. He made his way back to his room to shower. Suddenly, he finds himself back in the dream he had while in the cryo-pod. He looks up at his reflection with determination. 

“What do you want now?” he asks his reflection, tired. 

“You should have taken advantage of your upper hand,” his reflection told him while it twiddled with a piece of shattered glass dancing along his scars. 

“What else could I have done? I won, I told him that.” Lance responded. 

“Keith and Lance, neck-and-neck, rivals,” the words seem to layer on one another in a distortion of Lance’s voice. “You should have killed him.” Images of Keith’s bloodied face flash.

“Lance! I’m sorry! Please stop! Please don’t hurt me!” Lance pierces him. Another image passes. “Please,” Keith begs as Lance squeezes the life out of his neck. Another image flashes. “I surrender, Lance” Keith’s voice cracks. Lance raises his rifle and tears his skull apart. 

Over and over scenes of Lance taking Keith’s life without mercy. 

“I won. I won. I won. I won. I won. I won. I won. I won. I won. I won. I won. I won. I won. I won. I won. I won. I won. I won. I won. I won. I won. I won. I won. I won. I won. I won. I won. I won. I won. I won. I won. I won. I won. I won. I won. I won. I won. I won. I won. I won. I won. I won. I won. I won,” he repeated and repeated, rocking himself back and forth, to the reflection until the words themselves had no meaning. Until his mouth bled and cracked from dryness. 

Lance felt the exhaustion overcome him. 

~~

Lance awoke to a shattered mirror in his hand, faint from blood loss.

_No one can know._

He dropped the mirror in a panic, afraid of himself. He checked the nearest clock to find it had only been two hours since his sparring match with Keith. He played his memory back in his mind to ease him to sleep. 

“Ha! Guess I won after all,” Lance said to Keith, dropping his weapon fatigued. “Have a good night, buddy” 

The scene glowed a bright sterile white. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Self Care Tip of The Chapter: Don't forget to take your meds if you need to and reach out to your friends. They would love to hear from you. If you're afraid that you don't have friends, message me <3


	2. Chapter Two

Lance clothed himself in a rush upon hearing the alarms. 

“Paladins to your lions!” Allura voiced over the castle’s intercom. 

Lance ran down to the hangar only to find Blue bubbled. He knocked on the forcefield. Keith’s comm came through loudly. “Lance, where are you?” 

“My lion is not responding to me,” he radioed back. He turned his gaze to the Blue Lion. “Come on Old Blue. It’s me Lancey Lance. Open up. Okay, enough goofing around. I mean it. We gotta get out there and help the others. Oh, come on, Why are you being mad at me?” Lance grew more desperate with every comment. 

_You truly have no place in Voltron._

“Wait, do you hate me now? I’m sorry about last night. It was just a phase. I can prove it.” Lance put on a flirtatious tone. “Hey, Blue, you know I gotta say that’s a great colour on you. Oh, are you from outer space? Because your body is out of this world” 

_No matter how long you put on this facade the Blue lion knows how weak you are. How unworthy you are._

Keith called out on the comms again interrupting Lance’s swirling thoughts. “Lance, get out here now!” 

“I can’t. Blue is shutting me out,” he replied all false confidence sucked out of his voice. “Maybe Pidge was right. I am just the goofball. I guess… I guess now I’m not even meant to be a paladin.” Lance collapsed to the ground no longer interested in pretending to be happy-go-lucky. His worst fears are confirmed. He isn’t good enough to be a part of Voltron. 

_It is your fault that they won’t be able to form Voltron ever again._

Lance faintly hears chatter on the comms but isn’t listening. He doesn’t have the energy. 

_You’ve doomed the Universe._

_Not only were you inadequate but you actively ruined all the good that Voltron had accomplished._

_Zarkon is going to take over your home._

_Consume the entire universe._

_And it is your fault._

_Why stay alive to see something like that._

_Yon can’t change anything._

_Why waste anyone time being here still._

_You’re wasting oxygen, former Blue Paladin._

_Current, nothing._

_The Lions of Voltron know better than some pathetic apologies._

_They know who you are._

Lance only realized that Allura was in the room when she put her hand on his shoulder. 

“Lance, are you alright?” she asked in her inexplicably British accent. When he raised his eyes to meet with hers, she wore a look a shock and disbelief. 

“Lance, what is going on?” The scene Allura saw in front of her was baffling to say the least. It was Lance but also it wasn’t. His skin was paler, sickly almost, eyes red from crying but more notably, the tips of his hair had gone white, dry and bleached and under his eyes two bright white marks matching hers and Coran’s. Who was this?

Lance looked up at her. “Allura?” he asked. Slowly, the bleached white creeped up to his roots covering his entire head. Lance no longer looked the same as he had when he left earth. Allura brought her hands up to his hair to feel if was truly real. His hair was dry and brittle and seemed to break under her touch. She ran her hands atop the marks that had shown on his cheeks. His skin cold to the touch had burned her hands. Allura had expected to make a move on her but he stayed silent. A look of fear filled his eyes; Allura could see how much of a child Lance really was. 

“Lance! Where the hell are you?” Keith screamed from the comms. Allura and Lance shared a look but neither intended to return the call. Lance’s eyes drifted to vacancy and Allura felt alone, shaken by the new reality: Lance was Altean and no longer a Paladin of Voltron. Allura turned to the Blue Lion and with determination walked through the barrier. Allura felt in her heart her connection to the Blue Lion and her duty to protect the other Paladins of Voltron. As she departed the hanger, she could see Lance sitting frozen with his head between his knees. 

~~

Barely scrapping by, the battle was won. In a moment of relief and joy, the team did not notice that Lance was not with them. In fact, they hadn’t noticed Lance wasn’t with them for the next two hours. When Hunk had pointed out that they hadn’t seen Lance yet, the team felt a pang of embarrassment at their mistake. 

For the next hour, they searched high and low for Lance. 

“Did he leave?” Pidge asked, considering the probability of Lance still being in the castle despite their search coming up empty. Fearing in the back of their mind that they’d lose another family member to space; or worse the Galras. 

“We would notice if he had left.” Coran answered. 

“Like we noticed that he was missing,” said Hunk in a solemn voice. 

“Maybe we did noticed and we were just so fucking relieved that it was quiet. It’s not our fucking fault that he decided to fucking leave, is it? For fucks sake—”

“Keith, calm down. He’s probably in the castle. He probably just needed some time to come to grip with the fact that he’s—” Interrupting Allura’s reveal was the sound of the cryo-pod raising. 

Lance tumbled out, Altean marks and white hair included. His eyes filled with tears and he was rambling nonsense in Spanish. His sporadic sobs echoed in the room. Confusion filled everyone’s hearts. 

“I thought I could… I thought if I… Why won’t it… go away. Make it go away. Go away. Go away. Go. Make it stop; please make it stop; please, please, please,” Lance pleaded to no one in particular.  
No one had ever seen Lance like this. All the fear and worries they had been carrying felt heavier as Lance threw himself away. How much of their pain had Lance been protecting them against this whole time. Seeing him in this state, they could not imagine this boy being capable of laughter. Frantic, afraid and desperate, Lance didn’t even seem to notice he wasn’t alone. 

“Lance, buddy?” Hunk walked to Lance hugging him deeply. He hated to see his friend in pain. 

Suddenly the castle began to change directions flinging everyone to the other side of the room. 

“Get away from me!” Lance scream steady footed; his teary eyes with fury looked at the team, his mark glowing brightly. “Don’t fucking touch me.”

Lance stormed out and headed to his room. 

_Maybe we did choose the right Paladin after all._

Lance whipped his head left and right trying to find the source of the voice. “Who are you?” 

_He’s progressing much faster than we would have expected._

“Who is? Who are you? Where are you?” Lance raised his voice, echoing in the empty halls of the castle. ‘What is going on?’ he thought to himself. 

_We are the ones who gave you this power. Who will give you a place in Voltron. Who will show you your worth._

“What power?”

_Altean magic, alchemy, Quintessence Manipulation, the power of the White Lion. Whatever you wish to call it._

“What are you talking about? Did you take away the Blue Lion from me?” he asked tears welling in his eyes, his voice cracking. 

_In exchange a power, one that earn you a rightful place in Voltron. You were never meant to pilot the Blue Lion. You are going to attain new heights with the power we’ve blessed you with._

“You didn’t give me anything. You took me farther from my family. Just leave me alone.” 

_Some family they are. They cannot see your pain, your suffering. We see it and we are fixing it. We give you worth._

“Shut up! Get out of my head!” Lance runs to his room, his hands shaking. He searches his belongings for his blades. He knew he had packed them with him. He knew he was disappointing everyone by doing what he was about to do. But he had to do something. He needed to gain some control. His clothes thrown about all over the room he finally his journal where he had taped his blades the last time he said he was going to stop. 

‘Lance, you are loved. You are worthy. You made it to space with your best friends, you met a beautiful princess, you’re a paladin of Voltron! That’s awesome. I know you miss home but this isn’t going to bring you any closer to them. Wait. Just try to wait. The itch will pass. You will be okay.’ His journal read with a pair of razor blades taped to the page. He frantically tore the page apart, only driven closer to madness by the reminder that he was no longer the blue paladin. 

_Your foolish attempts at self-harm won’t separate us. We are bound forever._

“We’ll see about that,” he said as he locked himself in his bathroom. His skincare products covered the sink’s ledge, he wondered for a quick moment about why he had cared so much to make himself perfect when everyone knew how damaged he was; he looked up at his disheveled self in the mirror, mourning the loss of the connection to his family. Disgust filled his heart as he saw his bleached hair and white marks. His traditionally sun-kissed skin paled as he took the blade to his neck. If he could not stop the madness from consuming him, he could at least stop himself from doing anymore harm. 

_You won’t die so easily._

Self-control stolen from him, he began to scream and unlocked the bathroom door. 

The sound of cackling laughter filled his mind as his mind became more and more fuzzy and airy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Self Care Tip of The Chapter: Try to eat something every couple hours. You'll feel more energized. Cooking is hard but eat some snacks and try. Let yourself feel accomplished to have created something, also you get something yummy to eat out of it <3


End file.
